NSIDC Scientist Participates in Antarctic Expedition

Ted Scambos grins before boarding the LC-139 Hercules that will take Team 2 from McMurdo Station to the South Pole. —Credit: Ted Scambos, NSIDC

NSIDC Lead Scientist and Antarctic Ice Sheet expert Ted Scambos is one of a group of scientists conducting a traverse beginning at the South Pole.

The team of scientists from the United States and Norway began their journey in November of 2008 and will be traveling and conducting research until around March 2009. The team is the second of two teams traversing East Antarctica in an effort to expand scientific knowledge about climate on the continent.

The scientists on the expedition are taking turns posting frequent updates about their experience and their ongoing research. Read their entries in the Expedition Diary at http://traverse.npolar.no/expedition-diary/.

The traverse Web site also has details on the scientific goals of the expedition, which include efforts to:

Investigate climate variability in Dronning Maud Land of East Antarctica on time scales of years to a million years

Establish spatial and temporal variability in snow accumulation over this area of Antarctica to understand the area's potential impact on sea level changes

Investigate the impact of atmospheric and oceanic variability on the chemical composition of firn and ice in the region

Revisit areas and sites first explored by traverses in the 1960’s, for detection of possible changes and to establish benchmark data sets for future research efforts.